8-year-old girl found slaughtered

LAHORE - An eight-year-old girl was found slaughtered in an empty plot in front of her house in the suburb of Lahore on Saturday morning, police said. Resident of Ferozwala, Umm-e-Faiz left her house for a religious school as per routine on early Saturday. Hours later, some passersby spotted her body lying in a pool of blood in an empty plot outside her house who informed the police. The investigators reached to the spot and removed the body to the morgue for autopsy. Sheikhupura district police officer, Hamayyun Bashir Tarar, dispelled reports that the girl was raped before murder by unidentified killers. “Doctors have just carried out her autopsy and there was no sign of sexual assault. She was brutally murdered by unidentified killers,” Tarar told this reporter by phone on Saturday night. “We have got some clues from the crime scene and we will unearth the killers,” the police officer claimed. He further said that the police were investigating the killing keeping in view various aspects of the happening. The girl has been residing with her father and stepmother since her father contracted second marriage. Local residents told the police that mother of the ill-fated girl had left with her paramour. According to initial investigations, the stepmother of the deceased used to abuse her frequently over domestic issues. The police have registered a murder case against unidentified killers on the complaint of Faiz Muhammad, father of the minor and are investigating with no arrest made yet. Youth shot dead A 28-year-old man was shot dead at a wedding party when some friends of the groom resorted to aerial firing to celebrate the event in Nishat Colony area, police said on Saturday. Investigators say that the gunmen were under the heavy influence of liquor when they resorted the aerial firing. The police have detained five men while the groom and his family members managed to escape after locking their houses from outside. Police said that Muhammad Junaid was standing on the rooftop of a nearby building when the wedding participants opened indiscriminate fire. He sustained a bullet in the head and died on-the-spot. The North Cantonment police reached the spot and removed the body to the morgue for autopsy. Police have also registered a case and are investigating. Aerial firing on wedding parties, though has become a custom, is banned in the Punjab province, where a number of people lost their lives in such activity every year.